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Windham beats Merrimack Valley in OT in title game

Tuesday, December, 17 By Dan Hogan
Correspondent

BEDFORD — A team that was 8 seconds away from elimination on Halloween is now the New Hampshire Division 2 state champions.

Top-seeded Windham defeated sixth-seeded Merrimack Valley 2-1 last night, once again waiting until overtime to decide the result.

On Thursday, junior Nicole Croteau scored with only 8 seconds remaining in regulation to send Windham’s semifinal matchup with St. Thomas Aquinas into overtime. Junior Courtney Sweeny scored in the extra frame to win the game for the Jaguars.

Last night was a similar scene.

Down 1-0 in the second half, Windham’s Justine Levesque — who had a goal in last year’s championship game — scored with less than 10 minutes left in the game to tie things up at 1-1.

It took less than 2 minutes of overtime for Sweeny to repeat her semifinal heroics.

The junior scored her 28th and final goal of the season to give Windham claim to the Division 2 state championship.

The 28 goals for Sweeny is also a school record.

“It was all adrenaline. We wanted it so bad,” Sweeny said about her final goal.

Sweeny, who was a sophomore during last season’s championship loss to Lebanon, was ecstatic after the game. “It is absolutely amazing,” she said. “After losing the championship to Lebanon last year and to come back all the way to the championship and then to keep coming back. It was great.”

Head coach Amanda Ward added, “It feels like we came back and did what we came to do in the first place.”

The Jaguars won 15 games during the regular season to earn the No. 1 seed, and they knew that the other teams were out to get them.

“We knew going into it that we were the team to beat,” Ward said. “We had the target on our backs and they made it hard for us. No one just gave it to us.”

This Jaguar team is unique for a number of reasons, and Coach Ward has known that for a while.

“I knew that this team was going to be special years ago,” she said. “Just knowing that the makeup was coming together and hopefully everyone would be peaking at once. Certainly that’s what happened.”

Ward’s team also rallied around her during an extremely difficult time in her life. Back in August, Ward was expecting her first child. Unfortunately, the child was stillborn.

“We were all loving her and expecting her to be our mascot,” Ward said. “These girls made it a part of our season and kept her memory alive.”

As a result, this was not only a season of winning for the Windham players, but also a season of life lessons.

“We experienced the tragedy together,” Ward said. “These girls have allowed me to face it head on and just embrace the fact that these things happen in life, but with hardship and hard work come great things. Our game today showed it. We were down, they scored and we won in overtime. That just proves to me that these girls have learned that lesson in their lives already.”